Statements On Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, small businesses are the backbone of America. They generate more than half of the country's private GDP and support millions of families. In Montana, thanks to technology, geography is no longer a constraint and entrepreneurs have been able to build world-class companies without leaving the state.

Access to the global marketplace is largely dependent on access to the Internet. Large incumbent carriers often do not have enough of an incentive to serve rural America so States like Montana really depend on small businesses to fill in the gaps and connect our communities. Without small broadband providers, many Montanans would remain unserved. This is why it is so important to support our small businesses and allow them to continue to provide jobs and economic growth in their communities.

Burdensome regulations like the FCC's net neutrality rules are strangling our small businesses and preventing growth and investment. The enhanced transparency requirements in particular require small businesses to disclose an excess amount of information including network packet loss, network performance by geographic area, network performance during peak usage, network practices concerning a particular group of users, triggers that activate network practices, and the list goes on. Small companies like Grizzly Internet in West Yellowstone, MO, operate with only three employees and do not have a team of attorneys dedicated to regulatory compliance. Small businesses simply do not have the bandwidth to take on additional regulatory burdens.

That is why I am proud to introduce the Small Business Broadband Deployment Act of 2015 with my colleague Senator Risch. The bill makes permanent the FCC's temporary small business exception to the net neutrality enhanced transparency requirements. There is broad support in the record for a small business exception, including support from the American Cable Association, Rural Wireless Association, Competitive Carriers Association, Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, CTIA--The Wireless Association, Rural Broadband Provider Coalition, WTA--Advocates for Rural Broadband. Additionally, the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy filed comments with the FCC stating, ``Advocacy has concerns that compliance with the enhanced transparency requirements under the 2015 Open Internet Order is not feasible for small broadband providers, particularly small rural providers, and may ultimately degrade the quality of service that consumers receive from small providers.'' Providing relief from over 300 pages of net neutrality rules will allow small businesses to focus on deploying infrastructure and serving their customers rather than spending time on regulatory compliance. I ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this much needed legislation.

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